3. Status and customs of the caste.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Russell, R. V. (Robert Vane)
The Chasas do not marry within the same varga, but a man may usually take a wife from his mother’s varga. A girl must always be wedded before arriving at adolescence, the penalty for breach of this rule being the driving out of the girl to seclusion in the forest for a day and a half, and a feast to the caste-fellows. If no husband is available she may be married to an arrow or a flower, or she goes through the form of marriage with any man in the caste, and when a suitable partner is subsequently found, is united with him by the form of widow-marriage. Widows may marry again and divorce is also allowed. The dead are usually buried if unmarried, and burnt when married. The Chasas worship the Hindu deities and also the village god Grāmsiri, who is represented by a stone outside the village. At festivals they offer animal sacrifices to their agricultural implements, as hoes and hatchets. They employ Brāhmans for religious ceremonies. They have an aversion to objects of a black colour, and will not use black umbrellas or clothes woven with black thread. They do not usually wear shoes or ride horses, even when they can afford these latter. Cultivation is the traditional occupation of the caste, and they are tenants, farmservants and field-labourers. They take food from Rājpūts and Brāhmans, and sometimes from Koltas and Sudhs. They eat flesh and fish, but abjure liquor, beef, pork and fowls. Their social position is a little below that of the good agricultural castes, and they are considered somewhat stupid, as shown by the proverb:
Chasa, ki jāne pasār katha,
Padili bolai dons;
or ‘What does the Chasa know of the dice? At every throw he calls out “twenty.”’
Source notes
1 From papers by Mr. Parmeshwar Misra, Settlement Superintendent, Rairakhol, and Mr. Rasānand, Sireshtedār, Bāmra.
2Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. Chasa.